regret

Moms and Dads: Show Your Need

Moms and Dads: Show Your Need

“I have one regret of how I parented,” my friend David Towne told me. I leaned forward. David is a godly man married to a godly wife. He’s kind and gentle and wise. As an educator, he’s witnessed a lot of parenting, good and bad, in his day. His adult children have had their struggles but are good people. I would ask him for parenting advice in a second. What was his greatest regret?

“I wish I would’ve shown my kids my need for Christ more. I worked so hard to show them my godliness that I didn’t show them my need. I should have been more transparent. I should have shown them just how much I needed Jesus.”

In the early years of parenting it’s easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of strategies. You can parent with a positive approach, the whole-brain approach, the attachment method, the Montessori method or the Waldorf method, or the love and logic philosophy. The options can feel overwhelming. Proponents of each method tend to focus on methodology. As a young parent, it’s easy to think that your decisions around how to respond to your crying infant or how to discipline your disobedient toddler are definitive forks in the road.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.       How to Talk to a Child You're Disciplining: Simple but important advice. " Words like these will reassure your children of their value to you. They will underscore that the foundation of your relationship is bigger and stronger than any wrong act they could perform. Words like these mirror how God the Father loves you."

2.       7 Questions to Ask Your Staff on a Bi-Annual Basis: These are great questions from David Fantin. I especially like #1 and #3: "how is work affecting your soul?" and "are you being utilized to the best of your abilities?"

3.       Do You Regret Your Dating History?  Marshall Segal reflects, "Nearly two thirds of not-yet-married Christians express regret over previous relationships. That means the critical questions in dating are not just whom to date, how to date, and when to wed, but what to do when we get it wrong. And the reality is most of us get it wrong at some point along the way."

4.        I Am Not a Pirate: The first story about how the worst pirate in the world met the best pirate in the world is especially good. 

5.       How Geography Made the US a Superpower: This is such a unique way to read the history of the United States. Beyond discussing how geography made us a superpower, the video talks about why cities ended up where they did and how those cities were shaped as well.